- DNC sues Trump administration over taxpayer-funded TV ads promoting president
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. … The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.” (10/07/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20261007-dnc-sues-trump-administration-taxpayer-funded-tv-ads
- Annual Fundraiser Update
Hey, everyone …
Thanks to supporters CH and GB! Their contributions yesterday, totaling $75, bring our annual fundraiser total to $245.50!
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Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - Naval drone hits oil tanker off Russian resort city Sochi, triggering massive blaze
Source: The Guardian
“An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said. The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that ‘crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea’. … A crew of 23 – all Indian citizens – had been rescued, it added. Russia and Ukraine have targeted commercial shipping around the Black Sea since the conflict began, and Russia has recently attacked grain vessels carrying Ukrainian goods near the coast of Romania. There was no comment from Kyiv on the attack.” (10/07/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/07/ukraine-drone-hits-oil-tanker-russia-sochi
- ICE gang members told to ramp up daily abductions despite GOP unease as midterms near
Source: CNN
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told [gang members] nationwide on Tuesday to increase immigration [abductions] by 1,000 more people daily, returning to a previous goal of 3,000 daily [abductions], according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive. It’s the latest sign of ongoing pressure on [gang members] as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting. ICE also recently released a contract solicitation to expand holding space at agency offices, citing ‘exceptionally high operational tempo with increased [abductions].'” (10/08/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/08/politics/ice-immigration-arrests
- US aircraft lost or damaged in Iran war nearly doubles in latest congressional report
Source: Military Times
“An updated report from the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, now lists 81 U.S. military aircraft as lost or damaged since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Feb. 28. That is nearly double the 42 aircraft the research service counted in May, as Defense News reported at the time. The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones. CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, ‘Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.'” (10/07/26)
- New York Fed: Tariff price increases can take a year to fully show up
Source: Axios
“Tariff inflation has a long tail. Higher import costs can ripple through U.S. supply chains, with effects on domestically produced goods emerging as much as a year later, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers. The inflation hit from 2025 tariffs is fading, but newer levies are still feeding through to prices as inflation is already too high for policymakers’ comfort. … The authors previously found that U.S. companies and consumers bore most tariff costs earlier this year — research that Trump economic officials sharply criticized. … The researchers estimate that President Trump’s tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026 (excluding services and oil).” (10/07/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/07/trump-tariffs-fed-inflation-prices
- Report: US ambassador to Greece sought bribe from MAGA donor
Source: Hindustan Times
“A former Kentucky Congressional candidate and well-known donor of Donald Trump’s MAGA has come under scrutiny after a report on his alleged text exchanges with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US Envoy to Greece and former fiancé of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive report alleging that Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly texted Kentucky MAGA donor Eric Deters to pay her $100,000 credit card bill, offering multiple favors in return. The favors included using her connection in the Trump administration to help Deters with his issues with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice.” (10/07/26)
- US 30-year mortgage rate hits 7.49%, highest in nearly 3 years
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“U.S. mortgage rates climbed for a seventh straight week to 7.49%, their highest level since November 2023, according to Mortgage Bankers Association figures released Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed 19 basis points for the week ending Oct. 2, bringing its total gain over the past three weeks to roughly half a percentage point — the steepest three-week advance since early 2023. Total mortgage application volume fell 4.2% from the prior week.” (10/07/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/u-30-mortgage-rate-hits-114328906.html
- Kagan, Soai share Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on homochirality
Source: Yahoo! News
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two organic chemists for ‘for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.’ Dr. Henri B. Kagan, 96, professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, France, and Dr. Kenso Soai, 76, professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, share the prize for their work, which could change the future of pharmaceuticals. … Some molecules like amino acids exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image, but living organisms only contain one side of the image, which makes them homochiral. The other side is rarely found in nature. How this happened was a mystery to chemists. Kagan and Soai solved the puzzle.” (10/07/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/kagan-soai-share-nobel-prize-154301115.html
- Pharmaceutical Lobby Sues Trump Regime Over Most-Favored-Nation Pricing
Source: US News & World Report
“The pharmaceutical industry’s top lobby group on Wednesday sued to invalidate one piece of the Trump administration’s efforts to benchmark US drug prices to lower costs overseas in the Medicare health insurance program, arguing that it is an illegal overreach by the US government. … The PhRMA lobby group filed its lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Department of Health and Human Services he runs, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and two of its officials. The lobby group argues in its lawsuit that CMS, Medicare’s regulator, has stretched the authority of a program to test new pricing ideas into rewriting Medicare’s pricing structure without congressional action.” (10/07/26)
- UK: Reform investigates its employees, concludes they did nothing wrong
Source: Politico
“Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has published an internal investigation purporting to clear two senior aides who were caught in an undercover donations sting. The party is now threatening legal action against the TV company that produced the report alleging that they discussed how the party could receive a £500,000 donation from a fake U.S. donor. The review ‘found no evidence’ that either Dan Jukes, Farage’s long-term right-hand man, or James Orr, his policy chief, broke any laws. … A party official, granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, told POLITICO the pair’s futures will only be decided after the conclusion of a Metropolitan Police investigation. Scotland Yard is investigating multiple ‘potential offences’ arising from the broadcast of footage showing discussions about how the party could receive donations from an overseas donor and also asking a bogus company to pay for polls commissioned by officials.” (10/07/26)
- Trump regime proposes $70,000 fee for international students to work in the US
Source: Firstpost [India]
“In a latest move by the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on foreign students, the US Department of Homeland Security has proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to participate in a programme that allows them to work in the United States. Under the proposed rule, colleges and universities would have to pay the fee for each international student entering the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme. The programme enables foreign students to work in positions connected to their fields of study while completing their education or after graduation. International students are generally permitted to work through OPT for up to one year after completing their studies. Those graduating from certain science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programmes can qualify for an additional two years. Schools would be required to pay the $70,000 for each new student’s initial application to the program, and a $30,000 fee for each renewal.” (10/07/26)
- Kenya races to trace all contacts after first Ebola death, WHO official says
Source: United Nations
“Speaking in Nairobi on Wednesday, WHO Representative Dr. Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo said the coming days would be decisive in preventing community spread of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, which has now claimed its first life in Kenya. The victim, a local man who had lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for several years, fell ill there, where a deadly outbreak continues to spread in the east. He flew to Nairobi via Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda on 3 October, went straight to hospital and died in the Kenyan capital on Monday. Authorities have since identified the people who had come in direct contact with him from social contact and his admission to hospital. So far, there have been no other infections.” (10/07/26)
- Kosovo: Lawmakers elect a new president in a late-night vote to avert snap election
Source: WSLS 10 News
“Lawmakers in Kosovo elected economist and academic Justina Shiroka Pula as the country’s new president in a marathon late-night session, moments before a constitutional deadline that would have forced a snap election. The election late Tuesday was a significant moment in a political crisis in the small Balkan nation that has caused legislative deadlock for over 19 months and two early parliamentary elections. Just before Shiroka Pula was elected, lawmakers also approved a law limiting the powers of a special court in The Hague, Netherlands, which was set up to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the country’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia. … She will have to endorse the law limiting the power of the Hague court for it to become binding.” (10/07/26)
- Trump threatens to “terminate” top campaign advisers after revelation of work for pro-Russia Bosnia party
Source: New York Post
“President Trump threatened Wednesday to ‘terminate’ two key advisers after they were revealed to have raked in ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars each’ advising a pro-Russian political party in Bosnia as Republicans brace for a potential bloodbath in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. ‘Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants. They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants. They most likely have numerous clients, but for that, you would have to ask them,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘They are allowed to do work for others, just like all consultants in Washington, D.C. I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!'” (10/07/26)
- Nepal Ends Search for Thousands of Flood Victims as Family Reactions Range From Anger to Relief
Source: US News & World Report
“Nepal announced its intention to cease search and rescue operations for victims of the Aug. 26 flood that killed at least 1,455 people with thousands more still missing. Family members of 5,285 people who remain unaccounted for, including hundreds of foreign nationals, expressed mixed reactions, with some relieved and others unhappy with the decision by Nepal’s government announced late Monday. The office of Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the government will concentrate on rehabilitation and reconstruction including restoring roads and bridges cut off by floods, particularly in remote areas where damaged infrastructure has made aid deliveries difficult. The government estimates reconstruction and recovery will cost $4.77 billion.” (10/07/26)
- Canada: Regime to indefinitely extend Medical Assistance In Dying exclusion for people solely suffering from mental illness
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“The federal government will introduce legislation this fall that will indefinitely extend the ban on access to a medically assisted death for people who are only suffering from a mental illness, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said on Wednesday. ‘Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the Criminal Code of medical assistance in dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis,’ he said in the foyer of the House of Commons. Fraser said the government’s decision reflects the position expressed by a special parliamentary committee report released in June along with his own department’s probing of the issue. … Fraser said the promised legislation will also “open the door” for people to give advance consent for their own medically assisted death in circumstances where the illness they are suffering from will eventually eliminate their capacity to make that decision.” (10/07/26)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-maid-exclusion-9.7372732
- Trump doesn’t plan to return money he stole to buy campaign ads
Source: Politico
“President Donald Trump will not reimburse the federal government for taxpayer-funded advertisements promoting him and his administration ahead of the November midterms — and even dropped a new ad on Tuesday. Following bipartisan backlash to the more than $10 million spent on what the White House dubbed ‘Patriotic Ads,’ Trump announced Monday on Truth Social that his super PAC would cover the cost of the ads. But White House officials clarified on Tuesday to POLITICO that the president’s post did not mean the PAC would pay for the spots that had already aired. … In all, Trump has spent about $11.6 million on more than a dozen ads, according to an estimate from AdImpact, an analytics firm which tracks advertising. The advertisements were reportedly paid for with funds from a $20 million contract awarded by the Department of Homeland Security.” (10/06/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/06/trump-taxpayer-funded-advertisements-01109296
- US regime, WHO request details from Russian regime amid reports of second pneumonia case
Source: Fox News
“Amid global public health concerns surrounding the death of an Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East worker, the World Health Organization noted in a statement issued Tuesday on the X account of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that it had requested more information from Russia regarding the matter, including on ‘media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.’ ‘The individual died on 2 October 2026 after being hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Initial media reports suggested pneumonic plague following an alleged accidental laboratory exposure,’ the WHO statement noted. … The U.S. State Department has formally requested more information from the Russian government regarding the death of the woman who worked at the anti-plague research facility, issuing what is known as a démarche, defined as a request or intercession with a foreign official.” (10/07/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-who-request-details-russia-amid-reports-second-pneumonia-case
- France: Regime halts police use of stun grenades at student protests
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“France has temporarily banned police from using stun grenades at student-led protests, the interior minister said, amid growing accusations of police brutality following several days of student demonstrations nationwide. The announcement on Wednesday came a day after hundreds of thousands of students and supporters marched across France to demand more funding for education and better conditions in high schools, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to convene an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu and other key ministers to try to defuse the crisis.” (10/07/26)
- Is Palestine a Third Rail or Key to a Democratic Blue Wave?
Source: Informed Comment
by Alex Poppe“As the midterms draw near, I’ve been thinking about the role art plays in catalyzing political change. On September 12, the documentary film NAZA, which interrogates the systems used by the Israel government to target and calculate Palestinian civilian casualities in Gaza, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival after receiving a 25-minute standing ovation.” (10/08/26)
https://www.juancole.com/2026/10/palestine-third-democratic.html
- Private Electricity Grids Meeting the Data Center Moment
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank“Private electricity grids, also known as consumer-regulated electricity (CRE), are a free-market policy idea that allows private entities to meet the demand of new large-load users like data centers entirely off the ratepayer-supported grid. Private electricity grids can benefit average ratepayers, developers, and government institutions like the Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) by shifting some of the risk and need for new electricity onto private investors, while also giving those investors the benefit of reduced regulation and quicker speed to operation. This has been an idea I have been beating the drum on for a long time. But recently, private electricity grids have started to be used in practice.” (10/07/26)
- AI Authoritarianism: A Government Without Constitutional Brakes
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“Donald Trump promised to shrink the federal government. But what if Trump’s pledge to cut the federal work force wasn’t really about eliminating government bureaucracy but outsourcing it to the AI tech sector? What if Trump, with the backing of a self-serving industry eager to automate government, is instead helping to build a government that no longer needs as many human beings to operate it? Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are disappearing from the government payroll at the same time that Washington is racing to automate the work they once performed with artificial intelligence. … What we are watching unfold is the construction of a government that requires fewer human beings to carry out its will, fewer human beings to question its orders, and fewer human beings to stand in the way when efficiency collides with legality, morality or constitutional restraint.” (10/07/26)
- They Thought They Were Free: Are We?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling“Americans celebrate the 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. They hail being a free people. They thank veterans and active military personnel for their service in keeping America free. But are we any more free in terms of the pervasive presence of government oversight, control, regulation, and planning of virtually every corner of everyday life than those Germans thought of themselves as free in the 1930s? Yes, we are not a dictatorship, but if both major political parties advocate and insist upon the same political paternalism, with the only difference being the forms and extent of it, how far is it, in fact, from living in a one-party state?” (10/07/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/they-thought-they-were-free-are-we/
- Here’s What to Do About Trump’s War Crimes
Source: Foreign Policy
by Anjali Dayal“U.S. President Donald Trump stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 and made two explicit threats. He threatened to use military force in Latin America in service of U.S. interests, and he threatened annihilation for both the Iranian government and the Iranian people. The actions he proposed contravene both the international laws prohibiting war and the international humanitarian law that protects civilians in conflict. … the laws of war, themselves part of U.S. law, prohibit indiscriminate threats against a civilian population. Accordingly, Trump’s public deliberations about who to invade and who to annihilate were themselves crimes, committed in full view of thousands of diplomats and heads of state. … Many in the United States and around the world are desperate to see Trump and his top advisors held accountable for all this lawlessness but are at a loss for how to do so.” (10/07/26)
- Is “abundance” really dead?
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel“Democrats are feeling very good about next month’s elections, and the jockeying is already underway about which faction made it happen. Progressives hope to power a Democratic victory in the House that sees them pick up more seats — and influence — in the next Congress. When ‘abundance’ critics went after the movement, they were trying to win the argument then as well as the argument of the future. They saw a coalition of techies and liberals who were trying to prevent what they wanted: A move to the left and away from deep-pocketed donors. They view ‘abundists’ taking credit for Mamdani’s victory as opportunists trying to deny democratic socialists a major governing success. But the non-socialists have made a modicum of impact, even if ‘abundance’ has faded from Democrats’ lexicon.” (10/07/26)
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/07/2026/is-abundance-really-dead
- David J. Rush: Small Beans, Long Sentence
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“I guess it’s the principle of the thing. If the feds let even one of their hirelings get away with stealing from the gang itself, even just a measly 14.6 minutes’ worth of the annual loot, more of those hirelings might decide they’d like a taste too, and next thing you know the gang’s leaders migh have to give up the thug life and get real jobs serving caffeinated beverages or pumping out septic tanks. Can’t have that! But it’s also the principle of the thing working from the other direction: If it’s not theft for the feds to steal the money from you, how is it theft for [David J.] Rush to steal the money from them? And Rush’s form of theft was arguably less violent than his bosses’ preferred way of doing things.” (10/07/26)
- Macron Goes Full Orwell: French President Makes One More Pitch for Censorship
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“French President Emmanuel Macron went full Orwell this week. While long the darling of Western media, Macron has been one of the most anti-free-speech leaders in the world. This week, he declared that ‘The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech.’ Having Emmanuel Macron holding forth on free speech is akin to Joey Chestnut proselytizing on veganism. France has been in a headlong plunge into censorship and speech criminalization. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to ‘inciting’ or ‘intimidating’ others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris bar. In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority ‘smelly’.” (10/07/26)
https://jonathanturley.org/2026/10/07/marcon-goes-full-orwell/
- When Did Obesity Become a Drug Deficiency?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon“Faced with one of the biggest and fastest changes in human health, we’re treating the results as a condition that needs lifelong medication. The newest drugs are very effective, and that’s important to recognize. Semaglutide and tirzepatide have led to weight loss that older nonsurgical treatments rarely matched. Semaglutide has also reduced the risk of major heart problems in people with overweight or obesity and heart disease who didn’t have diabetes. Tirzepatide has greatly improved sleep apnea in people with obesity. These results are significant, and these drugs are much more than cosmetic weight-loss aids. That’s why we need to look closely at what’s happening now. The problem isn’t that these drugs don’t work; they clearly do. The real concern is that they might work so well that we stop asking why so many people need them in the first place.” (10/07/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/when-did-obesity-become-a-drug-deficiency/
- The Return of the Tudors
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“Henry VIII was a nationalist in that he chafed at England’s being made to answer, to the degree it was obliged to do so, to the original European union—the elite, transnational, Continental bureaucracy known as the Catholic Church …. But Henry’s protean nationalism meant the same thing as the ersatz nationalism of today’s nat-pop right in the United States—for the executive, I get to do what I want, and for his apologists, We get paid. … Henry’s court was practically an Olympus compared to Donald Trump’s circle of imbeciles and moral midgets … but the Tudor entourage had its Steve Witkoffs and Jared Kushners, too, a pillaging aristocracy all too happy to profit from policy, using the seizure of church property and church funds to enrich itself.” (10/07/26)
- No One Gives A Fuck About October 7
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands. After Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the morning of October 7, there was an outpouring of love and sympathy for Israel from around the entire world. Every major landmark from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building were illuminated blue and white in solidarity with the Israeli people. … Anyone who hadn’t been following the Israel-Palestine issue very closely was on Israel’s side that day. And then the bombs started dropping. And dropping. And dropping. And dropping.” (10/07/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/10/07/no-one-gives-a-fuck-about-october-7/
- The Donald’s Quixote Is Tilting at Iranian Windmills
Source: Antiwar.com
by David Stockman“Treasury Secy Scott Bessent clearly endeavors to be the second Pete Hegseth of Trump World, albeit via packing heat in the form of economic missiles rather than the kinetic kind. In fact, however, his ballyhooed Operation Economic Outcast actually amounts to the greatest windmill tilting operations since Don Quixote himself. So let’s cut to the chase right up front. To wit, Bessent’s premise that he can switch-off Iran’s military payroll and bring the regime to its knees by driving its oil exports to zero is wholly delusionary. The former (regime collapse) does not remotely follow from the latter (oil exports at zero), which for all practical purposes has already happened. So herein we endeavor to explain why cutting off Iran’s oil exports isn’t any kind of war-winning silver bullet at all.” (10/07/26)
- Global tipping point in a shipping chokepoint
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“The concept of innocence shows up often in international law, and in recent weeks, a growing number of countries have rallied to defend it – in the narrowest part of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The waterway links Europe and Asia, helping ships avoid a long route around Africa. An expanding war to keep the strait open and safe for commercial ships (a historic right known as ‘innocent passage’) has now gone global, especially after Iran closed the nearby Strait of Hormuz in its war with the United States. Together, the two vital sea-lanes have served as a transit point for more than a quarter of seaborne petroleum. Recent violations of these ‘innocent’ waterways, embedded in rules for the freedom of navigation, have raised prices at the pump everywhere, even in oil-rich North America.” (10/07/26)
- What did Netanyahu know before Oct. 7?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Blaise Malley“His re-election prospects are threatened as recent investigations detail alerts from abroad in the days and weeks before the 2023 Hamas attack.” (10/07/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/benjamin-netanyahu-october-7-warning/
- The One Issue Midterm Victors Must Solve? Corruption
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman“One of the most potent midterm election slogans was offered by the Republicans in 1946: ‘HAD ENOUGH?’ The GOP swept into power after years of New Deal dominance. We like to say that what counts is not what you are against, but what you are for. Not always, though. Sometimes ‘Had enough?’ is enough. Midterm elections often are waged as a rebuke to the party in control of the White House. Political scientists call this a thermostatic election. Voters adjust the temperature by turning the dial away from perceived overreaches. Sometimes the floor just drops out from under a political party. This could be a year when ‘Had enough?’ is enough. But at times candidates have an agenda, detailed or implicit. Those are the years that produce the biggest change.” (10/07/26)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/midterm-issue-nobody-can-ignore
- Debt and Profit
Source: EconLog
by Valentin Boboc“An ordinary person can earn a paycheque, pay her taxes, cover living costs and mortgage payments, and perhaps even add to her savings — and at the end of the day she will still owe most of her mortgage. This is a normal state of affairs, and nobody finds it puzzling. Yet when a company reports profits alongside large amounts of debt, the reaction is often to question whether it’s really making money. After all, if a company is ‘truly’ profitable, why is it in debt? The short answer is that debt is not the opposite of profit. Loss is the opposite of profit. This imagined contradiction is easier to resolve once we recognize that profit is a flow and debt is a stock.” (10/07/26)
- Prettifying Executions Does Not Make Them Quicker or More Reliable
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“After Tennessee unsuccessfully tried to execute Christa Pike last week, an ambulance whisked her to a Nashville hospital, where the condemned murderer became a patient in urgent need of lifesaving care. Should Pike recover from two botched administrations of pentobarbital, which left her unconscious and unable to breathe on her own, she might travel that road in reverse after she is well enough to be killed. That bizarre episode illustrates the perverse consequences of trying to disguise the brutal reality of capital punishment by dressing it in medical garb. Although most Americans say murderers like Pike should be executed, the method they prefer suggests they are squeamish about admitting what that entails.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/07/prettifying-executions-does-not-make-them-quicker-or-more-reliable/
- The Coming Age of Austerity
Source: The American Conservative
by Jude Russo“It turns out that Americans loathe inflation, which is pretty amusing for someone who spends a lot of time writing about parts of the world where a 20 percent inflation rate barely warrants comment. They delivered unified government to the Republicans in 2024 on inflation, and they seem primed to throw them out of Congress this year on the same grounds. (Although the residual classical monetarist in me would like to distinguish between supply shocks and inflation simpliciter.) At the same time, the Trump administration has an ambitious if not always coherent program that needs to be paid for and that only minimally involves the legislature’s oversight. … Something’s gotta give here. Either the American people will have to make their political peace with running the economy hot and the consequent inflation, or real austerity will come and wash all this spending off the streets. A debt crisis could force the issue.” (10/07/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-coming-age-of-austerity/
- Climate Lawfare Cannot Rewrite Energy History
Source: Town Hall
by Vijay Jayaraj“Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel took aim at BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, hauling them into federal court on antitrust charges. The theory was breathtaking in scope. She accused them of stealing the future. Nessel’s complaint claimed that the companies had colluded, in violation of federal antitrust law, to hold back wind, solar, and electric vehicles and that Michigan families had paid inflated energy bills as a result. Judge Jane M. Beckering of the U.S. Western District Court in Michigan dismissed the complaint, holding that the state lacked standing to pursue the claim at all. That was only the beginning of the court’s skepticism. As reported, Judge Beckering found that the alleged chain connecting a decades-long conspiracy to the state’s claimed overcharges stretched too thin to support most of the injuries Michigan tried to claim.” (10/07/26)
- The Invisible Heroes of Our Tradition
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe“On August 3, 1940, a mere six months into World War II, Ludwig von Mises arrived with his wife in New York City. The fifty-eight-year-old Austrian economist had narrowly escaped Europe as the continent was engulfed by war. Because air travel was not an option amid the escalating fighting, the couple had to cross by bus from their home in Geneva, Switzerland, across southern France, into Spain, and eventually to a port in Portugal, where a ship would take them across the Atlantic. The bus had to stop and reroute several times to narrowly avoid the advancing Nazi forces pushing into France. An invading army is dangerous to anyone attempting to flee in its path. But Mises was also a known Jewish intellectual opponent of the ideology fueling the German war effort.” (10/07/26)
- John Cleese is not a terrorist
Source: Washington Post
by Andrew Doyle“We cannot even be secure in our use of the word ‘terrorist’ any longer, given that so many are determined to abuse it. How else to explain the fact that comedian John Cleese, of Monty Python and ‘Fawlty Towers’ fame, has been reported to Prevent, the British government program designed to stop people from becoming terrorists? Are dead parrots, silly walks and disgruntled hoteliers now deemed early warning signs of radicalization? The complaint to Prevent against Cleese was made by a member of the public, and the details passed to 5Pillars, an Islamist media outlet based in London. In its report, 5Pillars characterized the complaint as alleging that Cleese’s social media jokes and comments ‘go beyond legitimate criticism of Islam and instead portray Muslims collectively as violent, criminal and morally depraved.'” (10/07/26)
- AI Consciousness Could Become a Regulatory Moat
Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle“Incumbent AI firms may benefit from a regulatory regime in which machine consciousness is considered plausible but remains impossible to prove or disprove.” (10/07/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ai-consciousness-could-become-a-regulatory-moat/
- Nithya Raman shows appalling judgment in “fascist” video against LAPD
Source: California Post
by staff“Nithya Raman appears to think she is running for mayor of Antifa, not mayor of LA. There’s no other explanation for her latest attack on her opponent — and the police. As The California Post has reported, Raman’s campaign posted, then deleted, a video in which she appears to call Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell ‘fascists’. The video also shows McDonnell with a red ‘X’ over his face. It’s reminiscent of the graffiti scrawled on local businesses and government buildings during the George Floyd riots of 2020, or the anti-ICE riots of 2025. The rioters are her constituency. That’s the message she’s sending by calling McDonnell a ‘fascist’. Does she even know what that means?” (10/07/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/10/07/opinion/nithya-raman-shows-appalling-judgment-in-fascist-video/
- Problem With Israel Much Deeper Than “Netanyahu’s Extremist Government”
Source: Common Dreams
by Eric Ross“Israel has killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza since the so-called “ceasefire” took effect a year ago, more than the number of Israelis killed on October 7, 2023. The supposedly unlimited ‘right’ to genocidal retaliation invoked ever since has left at least 74,000 dead. This quotidian slaughter is not new. For years, it was normalized under the euphemism of ‘mowing the grass’, as Israel repeatedly brought its impunity and overwhelming military superiority to bear against a defenseless, besieged population: in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2021. As a result, a generation of Palestinians in Gaza has been condemned to life and death under the deadly gaze of an Israeli panopticon.” (10/07/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/problem-bigger-than-netanyahu
- More Military Assassinations in the Caribbean
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits federal officials from depriving people of life without due process of law, which necessarily means charging people with crimes and according them a trial. That’s obviously not what the military is doing with its killings of those people in boats on the high seas. No criminal indictment. No trial. No opportunity to contest the government’s evidence or accusation. Simply summary executions based on the government’s unilateral determination that the occupants are drug traffickers. Given the lack of due process of law, the military killings of these boat people operate as state-inflicted assassinations.” (10/07/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/10/07/more-military-assassinations-in-the-caribbean/
- America’s Hidden Millionaires
Source: Law & Liberty
by Vladimir Snurenco“Americans have a lot of misconceptions about the rich. This becomes clear when you read The Everywhere Millionaire by Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick. The authors open with the deceptively simple question: ‘Who are the rich in America?’ They go on to show that wealth in this country ‘is more abundant, and closer to home, than most people think.’ In nearly every city and town, owners of apparently ordinary businesses have accumulated extraordinary fortunes.” (10/07/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/americas-hidden-millionaires/
- Who Reads? AI, Authorship, and the Collective Conversation
Source: Liberalism.org
“Writing just got a whole lot easier, but reading didn’t. Here’s what comes next.” (10/07/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/who-reads-ai-authorship-and-the-collective-conversation
- The Tariffs Were a Wake-Up Call. Ottawa Hits Snooze Again
Source: CounterPunch
by Umer Azad“There is something almost admirable about the Canadian government’s ability to respond to an American provocation with precisely the right number of carefully selected adjectives. Washington imposes tariffs. Ottawa expresses deep disappointment. Washington threatens Canadian sovereignty. Ottawa says the relationship is changing. Washington escalates again. Ottawa announces that Canada is entering a new era. Then everyone goes home. The problem is no longer simply that Canada’s foreign policy is too cautious. It increasingly appears to have no direction at all.” (10/07/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/07/the-tariffs-were-a-wake-up-call-ottawa-hits-snooze-again/
- Britain’s Productivity Problem Is a Choice
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“Britain has a productivity problem, and it is one of our own making. Before the financial crash of 2008, output per hour grew by roughly 2 per cent a year. Since then it has crawled along at about half that rate, sometimes less. The gap with America, France and Germany has widened year after year. That matters more than almost anything else in economics. Productivity pays for higher wages, better public services and a comfortable retirement. A country that stops growing more productive stops growing richer. Its politics turn sour, because every gain for one group must come out of another’s pocket. The comforting story is that some deep mystery is at work, a curse visited on Britain by forces beyond anyone’s control. This is nonsense. Britain made it hard to build, costly to power and unrewarding to invest. The results were entirely predictable.” (10/07/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/britains-productivity-problem-is-a-choice
- Prioritizing Political Ideology over Educational Outcomes
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Susan Pendergrass“In Jefferson City, legislative debates over school choice often turn into battles between special interest groups, union lobbyists, and trade associations. Lost in the technical jargon of funding formulas and accreditation benchmarks is the actual student sitting in a classroom where they are not learning. [Nikole] Hannah-Jones’s daughter saw clearly what many policymakers ignore. Adult political battles should never be waged at the expense of vulnerable children. When people demand that families stay put to support a district’s balance sheet, they are asking children to bear the burden of systemic dysfunction.” (10/06/26)
- Trump fighting Obamacare fraud while Democrats defend the numbers
Source: Fox News
by Mehek Cooke“Democrats love double talk. They claim to defend affordable health care while taxpayers finance fraudulent enrollments that harm the very consumers Obamacare was supposed to protect. Right on cue, they turned the Trump administration’s fraud crackdown into cruelty. Chuck Schumer claims the administration is kicking hundreds of thousands of people off their plans, while former Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls fraud enforcement a ‘false pretext’ for stripping away coverage. Before Democrats declare 760,000 people victims of Republican cruelty, they should explain why taxpayers were financing policies that some consumers never requested, used and know existed. The Trump administration recently announced that CMS canceled approximately 315,000 unauthorized Obamacare enrollments covering more than 760,000 people and expected to recover approximately $2.2 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies. An additional 419,000 enrollments are undergoing eligibility verification. Every taxpayer and every family struggling to afford health insurance should be alarmed.” (10/07/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-fighting-obamacare-fraud-democrats-defending-numbers
- Steve Hilton’s “Hail Mary” in Democrat-Dominated California
Source: American Greatness
by Edward Ring“In California, the political script is passé. Every statewide election is the same story. The Democrat candidate gets around 60 percent of all votes, and the Republican gets 40 percent. The script is so predictable that voters have stopped paying attention. Even now, in this polarized, politicized era, if you ask a random person on the street who the two candidates are this year to become California’s next governor, they won’t know. In California, the average low-information voter doesn’t vote for a candidate; they vote for a party. That’s the milieu into which Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has thrown what in football is termed a ‘Hail Mary’, a long ball hurled toward an end zone receiver, thrown in the game’s closing seconds by a team that’s behind.'” (10/07/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/07/steve-hiltons-hail-mary-in-democrat-dominated-california/
- The Motorcycle Murder
Source: The Intercept
by Nick Turse“He Confessed to an Afghanistan War Murder. The U.S. Military Promptly Closed the Case.” (10/07/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/10/07/afghanistan-war-crime-confession-accountability/
- Florida’s Limited Ban on Flock Cameras Only Scratches the Surface of Widespread Surveillance Concerns
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall“Data is often shared or accessed across jurisdictions.” (10/06/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/06/florida-limited-ban-flock-cameras-concerns/
- Rubble to Riches: Reckoning with West Germany’s Postwar Economic Miracle
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul McDonnold“Tobias Straumann’s new book explains how economic freedoms and currency reform helped West Germany outstrip not just the Soviet Socialist East, but many other nations, on its way to economic recovery.” (10/07/26)
- Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 171
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“How MAGA Plans to Steal the Libertarian Party Bus.” (10/07/26)
- Reason Roundtable 10th Anniversary Show
Source: Reason
“Join Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch as they celebrate a decade of the show with a special live taping.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/06/live-reason-roundtable-10th-anniversary-show/
- The Fifth Column, 10/07/26
Source: The Fifth Column
“Europe Is Melting, Meritocracy Is Racist, and Everyone Gets Dignity.” (10/07/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/europe-is-melting-meritocracy-is
- So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, episode 284
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Venezuela is a cautionary tale w/ Jim Epstein and Germania Rodriguez Poleo.” (10/07/26)
- Reasonably Optimistic, 10/07/26
Source: Washington Post
“How America can recover from Trump-era politics.” (10/07/26)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/how-america-can-recover-from-trumpera-politics/
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 10/07/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Punching The Panda: US Deploys New Missile System Near China.” (10/07/26)
- Reason Interview: James Heckman
Source: Reason
“Are Economists Measuring the Wrong Things?” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/07/are-economists-measuring-the-wrong-things/
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/07/26
Source: Politico
“Trump’s Latino coalition cracked.” (10/07/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 496
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Jan Bertram on the Free Cities Foundation, ‘free cities,’ and the situation in Germany.” (10/06/26)
- The Opinions, 10/07/26
Source: New York Times
“The Problem With Hegseth’s Pentagon.” (10/07/26)
- Politics Politics Politics, 10/06/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Can You Trust Senate Midterm Polling? A Tale of Two Economies (with J.D. Durkin).” (10/06/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/can-you-trust-senate-midterm-polling
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/07/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Spirals Into Crazed Fury as GOP Pollsters Deliver Very Bad News.” (10/07/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/216301/trump-spirals-crazed-fury-gop-pollsters-deliver-bad-news
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/06/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Saudi Strike on Yemen Home Kills Family of Six, US To Deploy Anti-Ship Missile Near Taiwan, and More.” (10/06/26)
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 10/07/26
Source: The Dispatch
“‘Friendship on the Knife’s Edge’ | Interview: Roger Berkowitz.” (10/07/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/friendship-on-the-knifes-edge-interview-roger-berkowitz/
- Nonzero, 10/06/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Will AI Make Humans Obsolete? | Robert Wright & Garrison Lovely.” (10/06/26)
- NPR Politics Podcast, 10/06/26
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“Why Democrats and Republicans have hope in the Midwest.” (10/06/26)
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/06/nx-s1-5992624/why-democrats-and-republicans-have-hope-in-the-midwest
- The Pilgrims Tried Socialism First
Source: Free the People
“Economist and historian Lawrence W. (‘Larry’) Reed, President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, discusses the story behind his book ‘Born of Ideas: How Principles, Faith, and Courage Forged America.'” (10/06/26)
- Cato Weekly Podcast, 10/06/26
Source: Cato Institute
“Is the US Already Quasi-Socialist?” (10/06/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-weekly-podcast/us-already-quasi-socialist
- Law & Liberty Podcast, 10/06/26
Source: Law & Liberty
“Richard Reinsch joins James Patterson to discuss The Civitas Collection 250, the way in which the Declaration is like a ‘fine blended scotch,’ and how civics centers across the nation are making rich conversations like this more possible. They speculate on whether a renewed appreciation of America’s civic traditions could also lead to more philanthropy, constructive institution-building, and cultural renewal.” (10/06/26)
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/06/26
Source: Politico
“It’s 2026. Still Obama’s Party.” (10/06/26)